Hadleigh, near Ipswich, Suffolk

Thorpes, home to the Primitive Methodists from 1836-1848. The building still exists as a private house

Hadleigh Archive

Hadleigh PM Chapel

Hadleigh Archive

2016: now a private house

Jane Richardson

Thorpes as it is in 2017

Christopher Hill October 2017

Side view of the second Hadleigh PM chapel, as it is in 2017

Christopher Hill October 2017

Primitive Methodist Chapel, George Street

By Jane Richardson

Primitive Methodism came to Hadleigh in 1835. The following year, Revd Robert Key, the East Anglian evangelist was stationed in the town.

To serve as their meeting place, the Primitive Methodists rented part of a residential building called Thorpes, in George Street. Since 1814, this ancient house had been used by the Wesleyan Methodists, but their society in Hadleigh was not a success. Key described the building as 'an old antiquated looking place, fitted to produce the impression that in the dark ages it had been a monkery or nunnery'. Despite this, during the next 12 years, services (including baptisms) were held at Thorpes, and burials took place there. The Revd Henry Knox, rector of Hadleigh, referred at the time to the 'house in which the Ranters meet at the top of George Street'.

In 1848, land adjacent to Thorpes was purchased for £14, on which a chapel was built at the cost of £155. In 1875, a new enlarged chapel and schoolroom were opened on the site.

In 1975, the chapel celebrated its centenary, but closed for worship 4 years later. It is now a private house called Rose Chapel.

(Written with information from articles published in The Hadleigh Historian magazine, by Sue Andrews (Ed) and Revd Michael Ayden)

According to a brief note by William Crown in the Primitive Methodist magazine in October 1853 p.623, the growing size of the society in Hadleigh resulted in the chapel being lengthened by 12 feet. It was re-opened on July 24th 1853 with tea for 200 the following day.

The extension cost £30, all of which they hoped to have raised by the end of the year.